British energy regulator OFGEM warned on Monday that there could be a physical shortage of gas over the coming winter. That means rationing, and supplies to Ireland will be in doubt. It is difficult to see how the government could cut back users in Britain without imposing proportionate restrictions on exports, and Britain is the sole source of the pipeline gas which meets around three-quarters of total demand on the island of Ireland. That includes more than half of all requirements for electricity generation, so power stations would see shortages too.

OFGEM’s head of wholesale market management, Grendon Thompson, cautioned that a gas supply emergency would impose load shedding on the largest customers, forcing gas-fired power stations to limit output or to close. Ireland has no gas storage and no capacity to import liquefied natural gas, since there is no LNG terminal. The reserve margin in Irish power stations is tight anyway, so there could be problems this winter, even if Britain is lucky and avoids a gas shortfall.

Government ministers are prone to rely on the targets in the Climate Action Plan whenever questions are asked about security of supply. The minister directly responsible, Eamon Ryan, stresses the desirability of relying more on domestic renewables, both because they emit very little carbon and because they do not have to be imported. The snag is that this offers no reassurance about supplies this coming winter, and government officials have been firming up a contingency plan for rationing both gas and electricity.

Even shallow-water offshore is being opposed by politicians on the east coast, concerned about everything from the sea-views of constituents to interference with fisheries and sea-bird colonies

In the longer term, a bigger push on renewables offers no guarantees either. Renewable power, from wind or solar, is capable of deployment in Ireland on an increasing scale, but is intermittent. There will have to be back-up and the practical option is gas-fired generation, likely to be required for decades and over the time-horizon that investors in new plants could contemplate. The Government has announced no plans for ensuring reliable gas supply over the transition to net zero, but there is an additional problem.

Wind power

The current supply of renewable power in Ireland comes mainly from onshore wind. With currently available technologies, there are two other wind-power options; shallow-water offshore and deep-water offshore. Shallow-water means the east and parts of the south coast, where platforms can be attached to the seabed at a moderate cost and where distances to onshore transmission capacity are manageable. Off the west coast, with the exception of a few favourable locations like the Shannon estuary, offshore development is likely to be costly, requiring floating platforms and new transmission lines to the bigger markets, which are distant.

The three wind options can be ranked in terms of likely cost, including transmission cost, as follows: onshore is likely to be cheapest, followed by shallow-water offshore, while deep-water offshore looks like it will be the most expensive. The current political preference is for deep-water offshore, the most costly as far as one can tell. Even shallow-water offshore is being opposed by politicians on the east coast, concerned about everything from the sea-views of constituents to interference with fisheries and sea-bird colonies.

The option likely to be the most costly, deep-water out in the Atlantic, is greatly preferred, and onshore development of either wind turbines or the power lines they would require, likely to cost the least, is being opposed strenuously by politicians of all parties, including the Greens and others normally in favour of renewable energy.

Nimbyism, as with housing policy, imposes high hidden costs

There is something unalterable, it would seem, about the riches of the Atlantic, at one time asserted to contain immeasurable oil wealth given away by the Government to exploration companies for a song. No more licenses are to be issued, and they found no oil anyway. But the bounty of the Atlantic has re-emerged, with Ireland now to become the ‘Saudi Arabia of Wind’ according to the boosters, who have sought State support while maintaining that renewables will cut costs.

It has become virtually impossible to get permission for high-voltage onshore electricity lines, of which an extensive extra network will be needed to accommodate more wind- or solar-power. Local residents also object to wind turbines and the ambitious targets for renewables have been stalled in an outbreak of Nimbyism, which includes putting electricity lines underground, at substantial extra cost. For local politicians, this is an attractive option – no unsightly pylons and the extra cost is borne by Eirgrid and collected from consumers elsewhere in the country. Turbines cannot be located underground, so this works only for pylons. The result has been a surge of support for the Atlantic option, including speculations, without costings, that Ireland could make hydrogen from Atlantic wind for export.

In the here and now, the practical course is onshore wind, proven and affordable. Nimbyism, as with housing policy, imposes high hidden costs.